And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the L shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the L.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDORDIsaiah11:1^2.

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; Daniel and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the L of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.But untoyou that fear my nameshall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

-Bible (Old Testament)
ORDMalachi 4:1^2.

A branch of one of your antediluvian families, fellows that the flood could not wash away.

-Congreve,William
  Sir Sampson to  Angelica. Love for Love, act 5, sc.2.

And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier, Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing The soul's sap quivers.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Little Gidding', pt.1.

   Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burne'  d is Apollo's laurel bough, That sometime grew within this learned man.

-Marlowe, Christopher
c.1592  Doctor Faustus (published1604), epilogue.

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each canbecomeaccomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing todayand another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening or criticize after dinner, just as I desire, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.

-Marx, Karl Heinrich
  The German Ideology (with Friedrich Engels).

Lovelyare the curves of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.

-Meredith, George
Poems,'Love in the Valley', stanza 5. The poem was revised and republished in1878.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig- tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet†I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

-Plath, Sylvia
  The BellJar, ch.7.

Oh roses for the flush of youth, And laurel for the perfect prime; But pluck an ivy branch for me Grown old before my time.

-Rossetti, Christina Georgina
  Goblin Market and Other Poems,'Oh Roses for the Flush of Youth'.

Just as thesweet-apple reddens on thehigh branch, high onthehighest, and theapple-pickersmissed it, or rather did not miss it out, but could not reach it.

-Sappho   7c
Of a girl before her marriage. D L Page (ed) Lyrica Graeca Selecta (1968), no.224. A practitioner and a theoretician of  so-called neo-Baroque, he used in his novels a variety of experimental techniques, satire, parody and a carnivalistic approach.

That man's the true Conservative Who lops the mouldered branch away.

-Tennyson
  'Hands All Round',1.7^8.